


(not)Dark Lord

by glitterpile



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Fluff and Humor, M/M, Parody, Translation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-26
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-14 01:25:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14759939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glitterpile/pseuds/glitterpile
Summary: Viten’ka is a Dark Lord. Viten’ka is bored.Translated from Russian.





	(not)Dark Lord

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [(не) темный властелин](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10652208) by [Evilfairy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Evilfairy/pseuds/Evilfairy). 



> Author’s notes:  
> wanted to have some fun.  
> Lyrics from songs by Tam Greenhill  
> (all stories about actually good dark lords are my favourite thing, I just can’t xD)
> 
> Translator’s note:  
> I apologise in advance for the poetry. I'm not a poet, but frankly I don’t think the poet in the story is meant to be a good one either so we should be cool.

“Viten’ka!” — the letter began. Viktor slapped his hand over his face with a whine and muttered ruefully:  


“Come on, mum, why ‘Viten’ka’? I’m a Dark Lord, Terrible and Unconquerable,” and pouted, contemplating whether to bother continuing to read.  


“By the way, about that, Your Darkness,” Mila drew herself together from scraps of shadow that had torn into the great hall through the open front doors, “there’s trouble in the villages again.”  


“Send a squad of horrors,” Viktor yawned, trying to maintain decorum by hiding the action behind his wrist. Trouble, trouble. As always.  


“What if we did it like in the good old times? A Scourge troop? And you at its head, shimmering with Darkness magic! How cool would that be!” Mila bounced up with enthusiasm on the spot, her eyes glowing with a familiar vicious fire. She was a witch after all. No matter which way you look at it, a witch will be a witch to the end.  


“Who are you planning on scourging out there?” grumbled Gosha, slinking in from a side door. After a full moon Gosha looked a little feral, the fur on his ears sticking up in little tufts. Of course, nobody told him that it actually looked quite cute, because that would risk bringing down his full animalistic wrath. “The peasants? Not much point.”  


“Plenty of point!” Mila’s lips formed into a pout. “What do you even know about this stuff?”  


Viktor glanced at them blearily. He was bored to death with their arguments and the rebelling peasants. If they sent a troop of scourgers out for every little uprising, his peasants would have moved away long ago. There’s not that many there to begin with!  


“A squad of horrors,” Viktor stated with finality, shifted in his chair and sighed heavily. The chair, being his overlord’s throne, was, as expected, composed entirely of metal and sharp spikes. It was decorated with skulls (prop skulls, Viktor was too fastidious to use real ones for this) and entirely uncomfortable for sitting on. His back, being constantly poked by the spikes, was beginning to throb mercilessly; even his skin wasn’t saving him, despite being as tough as dragonscale. Not to mention how numb his ass was becoming from the hard seat. “What’s next?”  


“King Christophe has sent a new favour,” Gosha cleared his throat, bowed and pulled out a huge scroll. “An ode. To your behind, Your Darkness. Shall I recite it?”  


“No need!” Viktor shuddered. “Just get an opus of some sort commissioned in response. Make sure the resulting scroll is twice as long!”  


“You just executed our last imp-poet last week for only ever using verbs to create rhymes,” Gosha reminded him while scratching behind his ear.  


“Don’t we have any human poets?”  


“None at all.” Gosha spread his hands apologetically. “ We don’t have many applicants in general whenever there’s a vacancy. Barely anyone is interested, even though we pay a fair salary. I’m really not sure why.”  


“Good point, why exactly is that?” Mila tapped a finger against her lower lip, her voice as sweet as honey. The thick, vile cobwebs in the corners of the great hall fluttered in puzzlement. The mildly surprised zombie butler reached up to scratch its rotten skull bones.  


“So find a poet in some light kingdom, shamelessly kidnap them, throw them in the dungeon and order them to start writing. Feed them six times a day, give the dungeon cell a nice scrubbing, put the good linens on the bed and some of the sweet spiders onto the walls. Let them purr at the poet.”  


“Spiders don’t really purr, Your Darkness,” weakly protested Gosha.  


Viktor glanced at him dismissively and waved him away. Both Gosha and Mila swept themselves out of the hall, the uncultured monsters having forgotten to properly farewell their ruler. Viktor turned sideways, threw his legs over the armrest and went back to reading his letter.  


“Viten’ka!  
You haven’t written to us for two whole months, and your father and I are starting to get worried. Times are unsettled right now with so many heroes wandering back and forth, it’s scary now for us to just live in our own castle, to say nothing of going adventuring! You, of course, could easily defeat them all, but really we just want to make sure you stay in touch. Or else we'll have to threaten to pay you a visit! How are Yakov and Lilia doing?  
Waiting for your answer, your loving parents.”

Viktor sniffed and threw back his head just in time to see Yakov as he strode into the hall. He, in turn, bristled and sped up immediately with the harshest intentions upon seeing Viktor’s disorderly pose. Viktor nimbly twisted up and sat himself properly in the chair, adjusted the wreath on his head, cleared his throat and tried to pretend that he had been that way the whole time.  


“My mother has been asking after you, Yakov,” he smiled innocently. Despite the whole Dark Lord thing, Yakov wouldn't hesitate to box his ears for any breach of etiquette. That sort of thing makes it very hard to pass yourself off as an adult, responsible overlord. No matter how much of the world you can destroy with a snap of your fingers.  


“I'm terrible, thanks to having to look after you my whole life,” Yakov growled out.  


“You wound me,” Viktor informed him and sighed heavily. “I'm fading away here. The walls are closing in, I can hardly breathe. Any more and I'll end up surrendering myself to the Light forces. Let them kill me with their holy swords. Maybe even right out in the town square. I don’t care.”  


“You’re a fool, Vitya, no matter that you’re a Dark Lord. You should have conquered the world like I told you to, then you wouldn't be bored right now.”  


“Sure, then I’d be sitting here brooding about having to take care of an entire world,” Viktor rejected his words sulkily. The flower crown slipped down and Viktor roughly pushed it up onto the back of his head.  


“You should get married,” Yakov stated authoritatively. “You'll immediately have more excitement in your life, the boredom will all go away. You know, a wife can make things quite interesting every now and then. Sometimes you'll get poison in your morning coffee, some good hits with the rolling pin around lunch time, occasionally she will try to roast you for dinner.”  


“What if I want a husband instead?” Viktor narrowed his eyes in suspicion.  


“Husband or wife, doesn't matter, as long as you start feeling better.” Yakov ground out, rubbing his back, and then suddenly clutched at his stomach. “I'm going to go fetch some antidote.”

***

Viktor decided to search for the love of his life amongst the common people, rather than the balls held by high society. Those were attended by the likes of Christophes and JJs; nothing good could come from that crowd.  


And, in order to avoid prejudice from his intended, Viktor set out on his journey incognito, in the guise of a minstrel. He was good at singing, far back in his childhood having attended a “Junior Dark Lord” course where he had been taught everything necessary - how to destroy worlds and put the fear into rulers of Light, - and everything unnecessary - drawing, singing, dancing, embroidery, wood carving, flower arrangement, macramé... It seemed like there were significantly more useless subjects in that course than useful ones.  


Viktor locked away his flower crown in the safe, clapped a hat onto his head, changed out of his regular clothes (as dark as his soul) and off he went. He ordered the returned Mila and Gosha to reply to his mother for him. They might be dim, but not completely illiterate. If he’s lucky, the letter could even turn out readable.  


Viktor wasn't intending on _deceiving_ his intended, _per se_. But it’s important to get to know each other first, you know, to really connect on a personal level. After all it’s pretty difficult to spot Viten’ka Nikiforov behind the Dark Lord visage, a wonderful dark boy with a kind heart and a bright soul.  


It so happened that now Viktor was aimlessly plucking at the strings on his lute and trying to remember under the judgemental stare of the innkeeper at least one song that did not contain viciousness, dismemberment, brute violence or propaganda in favour of the dark side.  


_“If I was an angel, I’d live in heaven,”_ he hesitantly strummed, peering sideways at the innkeeper. The object of his concern had, in fact, been distracted by some newcomers - a moderately statured, but quite well-armed warrior and his unremarkable companion. _“And on a pair of white wings I’d fly…”_  


The warrior’s companion turned towards Viktor, took off his glasses, cleaned them, squinted short-sightedly and returned the glasses to their place. This was enough for love’s arrow to pierce Viktor’s heart. He stared agape at the gorgeous sight in front of him, not quite realising that everyone around him was watching him in expectation of the next line of the song. His audience included the young warrior, who had stepped up to his partner.

The surrounding inn was, in essence, forgotten. Viktor had claimed an entire table for four to himself as was the minstrel’s right, which is why the warrior and his friend made their way to the empty seats.

“So, what’s next in the song?” the warrior asked. “I'm Phichit, by the way, and my friend’s name is Yuuri.”

“Viktor,” he replied, shamelessly undressing Yuuri with his eyes. The other looked down shyly as a slight pinkness appeared on his cheeks. Ah, it was so tempting to append a few of his titles to appear more impressive. But instead Viktor put his fingers to the strings once more and let out, _“I’d need not struggle for my daily bread, nor count the days until I drain all my wine dry.”_  


Phichit cheered approvingly and sat down at the table, dragging with him Yuuri, who had been wavering uncertainly a bit further away. Viktor, suddenly aware of Yuuri’s presence right by his side, immediately remembered all the love songs - both the decent ones and the not so decent. And jumped right into reciting all of them.  


The innkeeper’s expression started to sweeten considerably, now that the room was packed to the brim with the crowd listening to Viktor, and the beer barrels were emptying fast, leaving his pockets full of clinking gold. Viktor, realistically speaking, didn't need any gold, but decided not to drop the disguise and accepted everything he was offered by the crowd in payment. And why not? It was an easy way to top up the treasury, at the very least! Significantly less painful than trying to extract taxes from the peasants!  


Getting tired, Viktor turned to face Phichit and Yuuri. The flowing alcohol had made them soft and relaxed. Yuuri was getting adorably flushed, making his heart flutter for the umpteenth time that evening.  


“I rarely meet warriors on my travels,” Viktor said with a smile.  


“Yuuri and I are on a quest,” Phichit winked conspiratorially. “We’re planning to vanquish a Dark Lord.”  


Viktor choked on his wine, which he had started to sip at the exact wrong moment. Yuuri attentively thumped his back while nodding in agreement.  


“I know, it’s a brave and foolhardy kind of thought. Yuuri is constantly telling me that,” Phichit rolled his eyes, “but they won’t accept me into the Light Order without it!”  


“What kind of order is that, where they don’t let you in without killing a Dark Lord?” Viktor subtly inquired, thinking to pay them a visit later. After all, anything could happen. Heroes wandered into his lands regularly. Often in the name of some noble lady, or else justifying their actions behind some royal whim. Occasionally, even entire small armies would arrive to try to lay siege to the castle. Initially Viktor took this seriously, fighting the heroes himself, sending armies against the sieges. Yakov watched his efforts and struggles, then suggested to instead simply deport them from his lands right from the start without question. So that’s how Viktor currently acted.  


“Well, they expect some sort of good deed,” Phichit clarified. “I decided to do something both pleasant and useful - perform the deed, and simultaneously liberate the world from a Dark Lord.”  


Viktor decided not to dig into which one was meant to be considered the useful and which the pleasant of the two. That would be an easy way to get upset. Instead he immediately started plotting a way to use this to his advantage in getting close to Yuuri.  


“I'm actually from the Dark Lands,” he said, giving the truth a little bend. “I know the fastest safe route from the borders to the Citadel. I could be your guide.”  


“What do you get out of this?” Phichit narrowed his eyes. Yuuri also squinted in suspicion, immediately looking so sweet and adorable that Viktor barely held himself back from tackling him into a hug.  


“Are you joking? I'm a minstrel! I’d love to see your glorious deed and be the first to put it to song!”  


And so they agreed.

***

Phichit - a naive child of the Light Realms - had little idea of who the Dark Lord was and what to expect. He had a sword, blessed as required, and Phichit considered this to be more than enough in his favour. Yuuri, who wasn't even remotely a warrior but was a very good friend, had a substantially better understanding of what a Dark Lord meant. He understood - and kept throwing cross glances at Viktor, silently judging him for hastening their journey towards certain death. Viktor, who for the past few years hadn't killed a soul, not even that of a sheep for his supper, was inwardly both proud and upset by this. Proud of his vicious Dark Lord reputation, but upset that they were thinking of him as such a monster.  


“You shouldn't be scared.” stated Viktor boldly. “His Darkness doesn't kill anyone. Might dent you a little if he’s in the mood, and then turf you out of the gates.”  


“We’re not scared,” smiled Phichit.  


“Yeah,” Yuuri confirmed in a depressed tone, “we’re not scared.”  


And threw him another glum judgemental look. Viktor reached out to him, lightly running his fingertips over Yuuri’s palm as he soulfully met his gaze. Yuuri suddenly turned red and distanced himself. Viktor sighed and sang out:  


_“If the ghost of winter gives you fret - just call me, my dove. I'll bear a branch of heather and a little dash of love,”_ \- at which Yuuri reddened even further.  


“It’s summer right now,” he said. Viktor nodded distractedly and let out a heavy sigh. His heart was languishing, full of long-awaited love, and Yuuri was entirely oblivious. Anyway, at least he could console himself with the fact that it was probably because they only met each other yesterday.  


The journey to the Dark Lands was a half-days steady march. Viktor had deliberately not strayed too far, to minimise any effort in dragging home his victim, er, that is, his beloved. Yuuri did not require dragging, but the issue was complicated by the bright, noble goal which he and Phichit were pursuing.  


Around midday they crossed the unmarked border without fanfare, having decided to go well around the crossing staffed by the zombie border patrol. There were even some imps in the border forces. And why would you want to deal with those? They’re thick as bricks, for all that they’re considered to be thinking creatures.  


“These are the Dark Lands?” Phichit asked, disbelieving. Viktor glanced around, not finding anything out of the ordinary - just the familiar green landscape, a burbling stream up ahead, a peasant village to the east, from which the sounds of imps being thoroughly thrashed by peasants were just barely reaching them. Gorgeous.  


“The darkest lands in the entire world,” he confirmed authoritatively.

“So… where’s the lava? And the sulfur? The black shores covered in hordes of monsters?” quietly asked Yuuri.  


“Sulfur smells nasty,” Viktor screwed up his face at the thought. “And what can you grow in lava? If nothing grows in it, what’s the point of having it? The Dark Lord’s not an idiot, I assure you, he loves a good meal.”  


“And the monsters?”  


“Well that depends on who you consider to be monstrous!” Viktor grinned. “If you’re talking creatures like werewolves and vampires, those folk don’t just wander about willy-nilly all the time, plenty of chores at home to do. The ghouls and imps also tend to be pretty busy, I wouldn't expect to see them out for no reason. They’re on patrol, usually. Everyone does their duty.”  


“It almost sounds like you’re proud,” noted Yuuri with surprise.  


“Who wouldn't show pride in their homeland?”  


Yuuri and Phichit, by all appearances, were pretty proud of their home themselves.

***

They arrived at the Citadel late in the evening. Yakov, Mila and Gosha met them at the bridge in their best clothes. They must have seen them from a distance and guessed that their Lord was returning. Commendable, commendable. Viktor gave them an intense look and put his finger to his lips.  


“Your D…” the inattentive Gosha almost gave the jig up, but Mila sharply jabbed her elbow into his ribs in the nick of time.  


“Who are you and where are you headed?” Yakov barked out harshly. Viktor nodded enthusiastically behind Yuuri and Phichit’s backs.  


“I want to challenge the scourge and terror of this world - the Dark Lord - to a fair duel,” Phichit declared frankly. Yakov clutched at his heart, Gosha at his own head. Mila didn't grab at anything, as she was busy trying decipher Viktor’s wild winking in the background.  


“The Dark Lord’s not here, he’s out,” she said, imitating Yakov’s surliness. “And he didn't tell us when he’d be back.”  


“If you don’t mind,” Viktor pushed forward, “we'll wait for him inside the castle.”  


He made clear with his expression that the slightest sign of refusal would result in that person being turned to ash in the blink of an eye. Yakov acceded, although his hand had relocated from his heart to his face.  


The group was let in and led to the guest wing. Viktor was looking all around attentively, checking that everything was in order in his Citadel. There seemed to be less of the nice spiders, that’s worthy of a dressing down. A pair of zombies shuffled past without the expected deferential enthusiasm. Jeez, one is gone for just a couple of days, and the undead are already letting themselves go. Oh, he'll be giving them hell for this!  


Yuuri was pathetically shuddering both from the spiders on the walls, and the zombies, and from Mila and Gosha whom it seems he was scared of more than the rest combined. Viktor himself was occasionally scared of them. On the other hand, Phichit was striding forward with great joy and wasn't scared in the slightest. Hard to tell whether he was blessed or it was pure self-confidence.  


“Have you been to the castle before?” asked Yuuri the next morning. Viktor had slept wonderfully in his own bed, teleported himself to the guest quarters and pretended that he had spent the night with the others. They were having breakfast in the great hall, served by Gosha. At least he’d had the presence of mind to not send out a zombie with a tray.  


“Never,” came the bald-faced lie. “And I haven’t seen the Lord himself in the flesh.”  


Yuuri politely gave him a questioning glance, with a sceptical raise of the eyebrows, but decided not to voice his doubts. Viktor, not knowing how to explain himself, grabbed Gosha’s sleeve, causing him to make a noise akin to a dog yanked by its collar.  


“Do you think we could have a tour?” he asked politely, while threatening him with a concealed fist, “Around the castle?”  


“Do you really need it?” queried Gosha mopingly.  


“Of course we do!” joined in Phichit, rattling his shining holy sword and rising from the table. “We would be most grateful.”  


Gosha sighed in resignation, and agreed to organise the tour.  


Viktor slid closer to Yuuri, linked their hands and whispered intimately in his ear:  


“I'll stay close so that you’re not scared. I want you to enjoy it here.”  


“I'm not scared,” Yuuri protested weakly, looking up at Viktor with wide eyes and smiling uncertainly. Quietly he said, “Thank you,” and squeezed his fingers in response. Viktor forgot to breathe, and barely suppressed the urge to unfurl his black wings and soar joyfully into the clouds.  


Gosha didn't end up being a very good guide. He muttered the names of the halls under his breath, only lazily pointed out places of interest and was in general thoroughly earning himself a punishment. Viktor was in a temper, Viktor kept interrupting and asking extensive questions, getting progressively more angry and upset.  


What if Yuuri doesn't like it? If he doesn't want to stay here forever? If he decides that it’s boring and dreary? (It was, in general, boring and dreary here, but being next to Yuuri had changed everything in an instant.)  


“And here we have the dungeons!” Gosha perked up a little. “And here’s our prisoner, we shamelessly kidnapped him and are forcing him to write poetry.”  


The poet who was kidnapped on Viktor’s orders was lounging on the bed, a quill in one hand and a goblet of wine in the other. Noticing that he had company, he jumped up and grabbed a sheaf of paper from the bedside table.  


“Listen, I've written a new line! 'Your eyes are like molten copper, your gaze deep like a moat! I'm stuck in you like resin, the price of freedom - a mere groat! But our feelings all ring false, our fruits will fail, and our rods…'”  


“Uhm,” Phichit started uncertainly. “I guess it works. What is he writing?”  


“It looks more like a regular room than a dungeon,” noted Yuuri, preferring to not comment on the rhymes.  


“What do you think we are, animals?” Gosha-the-werewolf spluttered indignantly, then looked over to Viktor for approval. “He’s writing poems on behalf of the Dark Lord to King Christophe the Great.”  


“Terrible poems,” said Viktor regretfully. “Absolutely terrible.”  


The poet seemed to take offence.

***

The days passed by. It was a lot more fun to live in the Citadel as a guest. Mila came by regularly, scaring them with news of the absent Dark Lord. Phichit was getting disappointed that they still wouldn't get a chance for a fair duel, Yuuri frowned and gave side glances at Viktor, while Viktor was concocting vicious revenge plans.  


In the evenings Viktor sang Yuuri love songs. Yuuri listened, blushed and allowed him to hold his hands, to fall into embraces; once he accepted a chaste kiss on the cheek. Viktor happily melted into mush and daydreamed of a speedy wedding.  


And everything would be fine, if Yuuri hadn't had the idea to go alone for a walk through the portrait gallery. Viktor found out about it too late. Gosha was in a dogfight with his malicious Fury, Anya, Yakov was off swallowing antidotes after yet another breakfast cooked by Lilia, while Mila was off putting some fear into the protesting peasants, who had completely banged up the poor imps.  


“Where’s Yuuri?” Viktor interrupted Phichit’s sword-polishing to ask, when yet another romantic line popped into his head.  


“He went to the gallery to look at the artworks.”  


Damn! Viktor had ordered for them to be kept out of the gallery, to avoid recognition. That wing had at least nine portraits of him, all in his different forms. The heinously kidnapped painter hadn't wanted to leave the dungeon and continued to fill up canvases until he was blue in the face. They had, of course, kicked him out in the end, furnishing him with a sizeable reimbursement in gold coin.  


Viktor ran in search of Yuuri. He found him in front of the biggest portrait. Viktor was rendered there in his full height, with black wings, all of his regalia, and even one of his feet pressing on the back of an imp to boot. Yuuri turned to face Viktor, compared the two. And said with satisfaction:  


“I knew it.”  


“It’s not what you think, Yuuri,” Viktor tried to back up. But the door had already slammed shut behind him.  


“I think that you’re the Dark Lord and you’re pulling the wool over our eyes for some reason,” Yuuri said sternly. “And don’t deny it.”  


“I am, indeed, the Dark Lord,” confessed Viktor and sank to one knee in front of Yuuri, taking hold of his hand, “But I wasn't fooling you, I was merely… omitting some things. Would you have let me sing to you and hold your hand if I had told you?”  


“Probably not,” sheepishly admitted Yuuri.  


“I want to spend my whole life with you, even if that ends up pretty short once your friend runs me through with his sword. Will you be my husband?” Viktor gently raised the hand to his lips to place a kiss on it and looked up imploringly.  


“Do I have a choice?” Yuuri asked with a soft smile. Viktor sighed lovingly.  


“You do. You can say ‘Yes, Viktor’ or ‘Yes, of course, Viktor’.”  


Yuuri burst into laughter.  


“I'll think about it,” he said, “if you promise to let the poet go and stop writing poetry to King Christophe.”  


“Whatever you wish, dear heart,” agreed Viktor. Yuuri leaned down to give him a gentle peck on the lips, and immediately jumped back up, blushing.  


All that was left was to explain everything to Phichit.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr


End file.
